Alex Salmond will today go into the final year of his drive for Scottish independence facing a daunting 20-point lead for the pro-Union campaign, according to a new opinion poll for The Times. The YouGov poll of more than 1,100 Scottish voters asked the question that Scots will face when they vote

With little more than a year to do it, Alex Salmond needs to overturn a 30-point lead for the pro-Union ‘No’ campaign and persuade Scots to opt for independence, the latest poll suggests. The YouGov poll found that the ‘Yes’ campaign is on 29 per cent support — exactly where it was in a poll by

Exports from Scotland to the rest of the UK could be more than 80 per cent lower 30 years after independence than they are at present, an analysis paper to be published by the Treasury tomorrow will claim. The paper, to be launched by George Osborne, the Chancellor, in Aberdeen, will also say that

A former Lord Advocate has intervened in the growing row over corroboration in Scots law and warned that the centuries-old rule could be subject to a challenge at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Dame Elish Angiolini said yesterday that the rule, unique in jurisdictions in Europe

The head of the Scottish government’s anti-bigotry taskforce has given warning that Scots need to stop denying the existence of sectarianism. Duncan Morrow, chairman of the Advisory Group on Tackling Sectarianism in Scotland, said Scots should not try to minimise the issue by dealing with it in

Scientists in Scotland could lose access to international facilities such as the Large Hadron Collider if the country becomes independent, according to a report. The Institute of Physics (IOP) in Scotland, representing 3,000 scientists, in a submission to a Commons committee, said that a separate

A leading ally of the SNP in the European Parliament has claimed that an independent Scotland would find it difficult to negotiate opt-outs on the euro and opening its borders when applying to join the EU. The Scottish Government wants an independent Scotland to remain in the EU without adopting

Alex Salmond might have to ask the UK Government to spy on citizens of an independent Scotland, according to an academic. The alternative for Mr Salmond would be to set up his own version of GCHQ at a cost of millions of pounds. Andrew Neal, a lecturer in Politics and International Relations at

Sir Chris Hoy has been approached indirectly by both sides in the independence debate, he revealed yesterday. However, the six-time Olympic cycling champion said that he had refused the invitations from the Yes Scotland and Better Together campaigns, adding that he did not want to get involved in

Ruth Davidson’s leadership of the Scottish Tories ran into more turbulence yesterday when a former Scottish Secretary said that she was on a “suicide mission” by proposing more devolution. Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, Scottish Secretary in John Major’s Cabinet in the 1990s, warned Ms Davidson that